Muslims File Suit Over Terror Watch List
On Thursday, August 14, the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) will hold a news conference to announce the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of several Muslims challenging their placement in the government's Terrorist Screening Database - a watch list of "known or suspected terrorists" - without due process. The lawsuit will be filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit. "The federal government has unjustly and disproportionately targeted American Muslims by routinely adding their names to the Terrorist Screening Database without affording them their rights to due process," said CAIR-MI Staff Attorney Lena Masri. "The lawsuit will challenge the government's broad and unchecked power to secretly label individuals as 'known or suspected terrorists' without concrete facts, but based on only a vague standard of 'reasonable suspicion.'"
CAIR-MI's lawsuit challenges the widespread government practice of placing names on watch lists without providing individuals with any notice of the factual basis for their placement and without offering a meaningful opportunity to contest the designation.